Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict did a lot of things right last year, his first in the NFL, not the least of which was surviving. / The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger

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The perfect tackle feels like nothing at all. Head up, shoulders squared and forward, legs flexed, arms forming a circle around a ball carrier’s torso. Bam! Ballcarrier stopped and airborn. “Feeling his feet slip off the ground’’ is how Vontaze Burfict explains it. Ballcarrier is planted. He feels pain and a shortage of oxygen. You feel nothing.

If you’ve ever squared up a fastball or found the sweet spot on a three-wood, you know what Burfict is talking about. Doing it perfectly feels effortless.

Burfict did a lot of things right last year, his first in the NFL, not the least of which was surviving. When you arrive in The League bearing the baggage Burfict toted, it’s 50-50 whether you need a locker or a bellman.

He was backing up Rey Maualuga at middle linebacker, until Thomas Howard’s season ended three days before the second game. The Bengals moved Burfict to Howard’s weak-side spot that day. Burfict spent that night in the gym at Paul Brown Stadium, with linebackers coach Paul Guenther.

Guenther used the night to teach Burfict to play a position he’d never played. Guenther set up chairs all over the gym – Marvin’s La-Z-Boy is the tight end! -- and began teaching. Fifteen games later, Burfict was leading the Bengals in tackles. That says a few things about him:

(1) He’s a very intelligent football player, and:(2) He can tackle.

Guenther says Burfict is among the smartest players he has coached. Burfict knows his position well enough, he has started to learn others. When James Harrison says Burfict is helping him learn the defense, you know there’s some intelligence going on.

But it’s the tackling that distinguishes Burfict. We won’t say the “hitting’’ because hitting suggests the occasional undisciplined launch-and-grab. Lots of very good hitters are not very good tacklers. When your purpose is to deliver a shot first and make a tackle second, you’re not helping your team as much as you can.

Good tackling is in bad shape. Even as the rules have changed, players still lead with their heads. They go for the highlight hit. They behave like missiles. They forget they have arms.

“I just explode through guys,’’ Burfict says. It’s as if the man with the ball is halfway to where Burfict wants to go. “When you tackle wrong, it’s like you’re hitting a brick wall. When you do it right, it’s like you’re hitting a bag,’’ he says.

The expression is “wrapping up.’’ It’s not a lost art, but it’s on the endangered list. It’s what you learned in Pop Warner – or should have – and what you forgot the first time you saw yourself on SportsCenter, making a hit. Maybe Burfict never made the Top 10 plays of the day.

I ask him if he recalls one great tackle from last year. He had 73 solo tackles, and assisted on 54 more. “I can’t remember,’’ he says. “I had so many.’’

Burfict isn’t boasting. He doesn’t think he’s all that. If he ever did, that notion disappeared when he went from a potential first-round pick, to undrafted. Guenther reminds him of that. “Thirty-two teams passed on you in the draft,’’ the coach told him recently. “Take that thought with you on the field.’’

Burfict says he took off just 10 days in the offseason. He spent the month before camp working out in a mixed martial arts gym in his hometown of Corona, Cal. The training made his hands quicker, he says, improving his ability to fend off blocks.

On the weak side of the defense, Burfict has the advantage of lining up behind block-eater Geno Atkins. It allows him to work in space. The added freedom comes with an added responsibility: If you’re not being blocked, you better be instinctive and good at thinking on your feet.

This is where Burfict says his knowledge of the game has helped. “Knowledge is power. I have a little more power. I know the defense this year,’’ he says. The split second he might have hesitated last year, he won’t this year. To the unprepared, the NFL is a blur.

Burfict also remains in grateful mode, knowing the Bengals took a chance on him. That’s part of why he took just a 10-day break between seasons. “Keep learning. Keep improving,’’ he says. “They gave me the opportunity. The rest is me.’’